Its a great time to buy in the Florida Keys

For the first time in many, many years, we are having what we call a Buyer's Market in the Florida Keys. This is due to several reasons. Normally, we do not follow the national trends for real estate in the Florida Keys. No matter the economic outlook nationwide, people still want to find their dream home in the warm and sunny islands of the Florida Keys. (Do you blame them?) In the next few years, we have the "Baby Boomers" thinking about retirement and planning for their future. One of their favorite choices has been the Fabulous Florida Keys, with its sunny, warm year round weather, excellent boating, fishing, diving and clear, warm, tropical blue waters.

However, 2006 was a very tough year for us following 2 very active hurricane years, lots of hurricane debris clean-up, and consequently rising insurance costs, and of course, the always rising real estate taxes. “Hurricane Fatigue” set in and many of our Keys homeowners said enough was enough, and decided to cash in on their investments after many years of double digit value increases on their property.

We saw almost 4 times the normal amount of housing inventory come on the market. For the first time in many years, buyers actually had a very nice selection of homes to purchase, thus causing greater competition. Sellers that were desperate to sell dropped their prices or took outrageously low offers. Once our prices started to tumble, buyers were reticent to jump in fearing they were going to buy at the top of the market or at least before the market hit bottom. Throw into the mix, the shaky national economy, rising gas prices, the unknown of our split political arena, the news media claiming a housing slump, and finally those pesky, unpredictable interest rates and you have a pretty good combination of why homes are not selling like they normally do. Some say we are just having a market correction from the rampant increases of the past 3-4 years.

Once buyers feel secure in the knowledge that we have hit the bottom of the down turn, the investors and second home buyers will jump back in. My feeling is that we are at or very close to the bottom of our market. Once we have depleted some of the housing inventory currently on the market, and cleared out the sellers that really need to sell their homes, the prices should resume at a more normal rate increase. In the past few years, this figure was as high as an astounding 48% increase in just one year.

If you have checked around the neighboring states and even in mainland Florida, you know that we are still a very good deal for waterfront property. Where else can you find great boating, fishing, diving, snorkeling, and swimming right out your back door? We have friendly neighbors, low crime rates, beautiful azure colored water, and warm tropical weather year round. We are indeed a good deal! Its a great time to buy in the Florida Keys. Tune in next week to check out statistics on what is selling and great investment opportunities. Please call me if you have any questions or log on to my personal website at http://www.keystropicalproperties.com/ to check out all of the properties for sale in the Florida Keys.